Cases of Biodiversity Resources, Water Resources, and Climate Change

Tanjila Afrin and Mohammad Saeed Islam, both DSA members, have published their first-ever co-authored book titled “Natural Resource Degradation and Human-Nature Wellbeing: Cases of Biodiversity Resources, Water Resources, and Climate Change” in Springer in March 2023.

The book scrutinises the underlying causes of natural resource degradation through a political economy lens by considering the cases of biodiversity resources, water resources, and climate change with a particular focus on a developing country (Bangladesh).

It demonstrates, through theoretical and empirical analyses, that natural resources have been exploited beyond sustainable limits due to the commodification process, the existence of fragile institutions and unequal power-sharing arrangements.

Simultaneously, the book attempts to develop an alternative framework of sustainability by incorporating the idea of human sociality. Human sociality implies that humans are social beings, who behave reciprocally. As nature provides numerous benefits to human beings, they are naturally inclined to conserve nature in return. Therefore, nature and human beings have a mutually beneficial relationship. The alternative framework emphasises the revitalisation of this symbiotic relationship—which becomes distorted in a market economy—to progress towards a sustainable transformative pathway that can ensure the well-being of both nature and human beings concurrently.